


A Name for All Women

by bubblemoon66



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Backstory, Bedlam Spoilers, Character Death, Character Study, Child Abuse, Childhood Memories, Cults, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Pre-Canon, Religious Fanaticism, Sexism, Skulduggery Pleasant Fic Exchange 2019, Unplanned Pregnancy, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:54:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21906013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblemoon66/pseuds/bubblemoon66
Summary: Written for the Skulduggery Pleasant Fic Exchange 2019. My giftee (@SP_fan) requested a fic exploring China's past.Please head the warnings in the tags; this fic deals with some heavy themes. I've given it a T rating because I consider it less graphic than the violence in the books, but it's still pretty grim.It's heavily based on the last few chapters of Bedlam, so spoilers for that if you've not read it! The Stiefvater quote below was also another big source of inspiration.For the duration of this fic, China's given name is Bébinn. I've also given names to some of the unnamed canonical characters (like China's mother and grandmother) because it would make for an awkward read if I hadn't.There will probably be more to come. China's a fun character to write and I've got a few ideas up my sleeve.
Relationships: China Sorrows/Unnamed Character, Mr. Bliss & China Sorrows, Skulduggery Pleasant/China Sorrows
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12
Collections: Skulduggery Pleasant Fic Exchange 2019





	A Name for All Women

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SP_fan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SP_fan/gifts).



> Written for the Skulduggery Pleasant Fic Exchange 2019. My giftee (@SP_fan) requested a fic exploring China's past. 
> 
> Please head the warnings in the tags; this fic deals with some heavy themes. I've given it a T rating because I consider it less graphic than the violence in the books, but it's still pretty grim. 
> 
> It's heavily based on the last few chapters of Bedlam, so spoilers for that if you've not read it! The Stiefvater quote below was also another big source of inspiration.
> 
> For the duration of this fic, China's given name is Bébinn. I've also given names to some of the unnamed canonical characters (like China's mother and grandmother) because it would make for an awkward read if I hadn't.
> 
> There will probably be more to come. China's a fun character to write and I've got a few ideas up my sleeve.

####  _“What’s your name?”  
_ _“My name is that of all women,” the woman replied. “Sorrow.”_

― Maggie Stiefvater, _Blue Lily, Lily Blue_

Away from the main house, in the shadow of the woods, lay the family chapel. It had been years since anyone had entered the building. Longer, decades, since any sermons had been read there. Centuries since anyone had found comfort in those walls and words. Once the building had been carefully maintained. It's prissiness a matter of pride. Not anymore. Now, it's ancient stone crumbled, its iron rusted, its wood warped.

China was glad to see it rot. Even when she was young, when the chapel had been lit with the flames of a hundred tallow candles, she'd found it a dark and cold place. Even when the crypt had been empty, when her family had filled the pews instead of the coffins, she'd found it lonely. It had bothered her: the dark, the cold and the loneliness. It had given her nightmares. Images of gods reaching out across the stars to tear her apart and remake her in their image: cold and dark and lonely too.

Only once had China given voice to that fear. On a wet, blustery spring evening in this very chapel. Ishara, her grandmother, had been standing at the lectern. The _Gospel of the Faceless_ was open before her, lending weight to her words, although she never looked down at it when she led them in worship. There was no need, every word was engraved in her long memory. China sat perfectly still when her grandmother spoke. With her hands folded in her lap and her legs dangling over the edge pew. She wasn't yet tall enough to reach the floor, which made sitting uncomfortable, but she knew better than to fidget. Beside her, sat her mother and to her mother's right, sat Bliss. Her father had been absent that night. That was not unusual. He was away more often than not.

At the end of every sermon, Ishara would close the heavy tome. The dull thud would reverberate through the high rafters, filling China with a sense of dreadful unquestionable finality. There was no doubt in her mind that every word her grandmother spoke was true. Their gods were the only true gods. They were of this earth. They had been cruelly cast out. And now they watched from afar, bidding their time, until the day they would return home to reward the devout and punish the rest.

At the end of this particular sermon, China remembered turning towards her mother. Tristitia's usually harsh features were softened by the candlelight. She looked younger, almost beautiful. There was a look on her face that China only ever saw inside these four walls. _Serenity. Contentment. Joy._ Worship gave her mother a sense of peace China could not understand, no matter how much she would have liked to. And she would have liked to.

When she caught China looking, Tristitia had smiled. "Doesn't that comfort you, knowing our gods are out there, watching over us, reaching out with unknowable fingers, aching to come home? Doesn't that make you feel happy?" she'd asked.

And then China had answered her in a small voice with words she'd learn to regret. "No, Mother, it gives me nightmares."

How her mother's face had twisted. Eyes narrowing. Nostrils flaring. Lip curling. Disgust radiated from her. "The gods were torn from us. Cast away from their home. Imprisoned among the stars. Yet still, they have blessed us. They have cared for us from afar. Everything we have is because they have allowed us to have it. Why should you have nightmares when our gods are the ones suffering?"

China bowed her head. "I'm sorry, Mother."

"Your mother isn't the one who deserves your apologies," said Ishara, stepping down from the lectern. China was not surprised her she'd overheard. Her grandmother's hearing was as sharp as an owl's. She seemed to have eyes in the back of her head. No detail escaped her attention. "Get on your knees, _Bébinn_."

The use of her given name, when she hadn't yet taken one, gave China no choice but to obey. She slid from her seat to her knees. It would do her no good to plead or cry or argue, so she did not.

"Pray for forgiveness, _Bébinn_."

China began to pray. She whispered the words under breath. In a harsh tongue so very different from her native _Gaedhealg_ or her father's _Hànyǔ_ or any of the dozen languages her mother tutored her in. In a language so old it predated the stones her home was built on and the trees that surrounded them, or so her grandmother said.

Tristitia rose, still grimacing, and walked away without a word. Long silk skirts swaying as she swept past. Bliss followed in her wake, also silent, although he did spare her a pitying glance. Last to leave was her grandmother. She tenderly swaddled the Gospel in its velvet wrappings, ignoring China until the task was complete.

"You are an insolent, ungrateful child. Be careful you don't sting yourself," she said in a quiet voice before walking away. The door closed behind her and China was left alone.

At first, she could think of nothing but her prayers. As time passed, however, China's mind began to wander. She thought of her gods' suffering but she also thought of her own. Of how her legs ached. Of how cold the draft creeping in under the door felt on her back. And how empty her belly was.

Her family would be sitting down to their evening meal now. A delicious affair served to them on silver platters by their mortal servants. Sturgeon cooked in ginger, parsley and vinegar. Parsnip stew spiced with sage and rosemary. Warm, crusty wheat bread. Perhaps even candied plums to follow... China's stomach rumbled at the thought of it.

Another hour or so passed. China found she could shuffle forward a little on her knees and shift her weight from leg to leg. It helped slow the growing pain in her body but could not stop it completely. The flagstones were uneven and the edge of one pressed into her shin. Four centuries later, she could still feel how cold and hard and sharp they were.

More time passed. China was beginning to lose track of how much. It was fully dark now, no light shone through the stained glass windows. A few of the candles had burned out. She was growing tired. The pain in her legs was becoming unbearable.

It began to rain. It fell lightly at first, pitter-pattering on the slate roof. Then it grew heavier, falling in sheets. The sound echoed throughout the empty room.

China tried to stand but her legs wouldn't make the right movements. Her grandmother's orders used in conjunction with her given name still bound her. It would wear off eventually. Even at that tender age, she had known she would not be trapped here forever, no matter how long it felt.

Half the candles had gone out; the rest were mere stumps. The wind was howling through the grounds, shaking the trees and rattling the door. China's imagination ran wild. Pictures of banshees and buggane and worse danced through her mind. Angry and hungry and untamed...

The door blew open. Wind swept through the room and took the rest of the candlelight with it. Then the door closed. Footsteps approached. China's heart lept to her throat. _Someone was here_. A whimper escaped her lips against her will and she stumbled over the words to her prayer. Desperately, she tried to rise and turn but found she couldn't.

"It's only me, Sister."

Relief flooded China as Bliss stepped into her field of vision. In one hand he held a lantern. In the other, one of their mother's china teacups. He set the lantern on the floor and knelt before her.

"I brought you something to drink," he said.

China tried to speak, to thank him, but couldn't stop her lips from mouthing their prayers. So, instead, she nodded. Bliss would understand what she meant. They had been close then, the kind of siblings that didn't need words to speak.

"Here," he said. He raised the cup to her still-moving lips. Lukewarm tea trickled into her mouth and dribbled down her chin. It was sickly sweet and some of the leaves caught in her throat and made her cough, but she was grateful.

When the cup was drained he set it on the floor beside the lantern.

"You need to pick a name," he said. "You need to protect yourself. You're seven years old; old enough to choose one."

He tugged the sleeve of his léine over his hand and used it to wipe the tea off her face. That, China felt, was a gesture of affection too far. She did her best to glare her disapproval.

"Don't give me that look. Grandmother will know I was here if there's tea on your chin."

While China didn't appreciate being treated like an infant, even she would admit that was a fair reason. If Ishara discovered that Bliss had attempted to intervene in her punishment, he would spend the rest of the night on his knees beside her. Although, she thought, that didn't excuse his lack of handkerchief.

"You know she wouldn't be able to hurt you like this if you'd pick a name. Any name. You wouldn't even have to keep it."

China scoffed at his words. She'd always been cynical, even as a child. While Bliss meant well, that didn't make him right. Taking a name would not change things. Bliss had taken his while she was still in the cradle. Yet, how many times had she seen him forced to his knees, or cuffed across the ear, or locked in the root cellar for his impetuous, blasphemous tongue? 

Bliss picked the teacup up and ran a thumb over one of the blue flowers painted on its side. The cup was part of a set. A wedding gift from their father to their mother; brought with him from his native lands far across to the sea. Tristitia would be furious if she caught Bliss with it. The last time he had held one, he'd been careless and broken it. He'd spent the next two days locked in the root cellar with nothing but carrots for company.

"I can't stay," Bliss said. She wondered if he too was thinking of the cellar. He rose. "Think about what I said, Sister." Then he picked up the lantern and walked away, leaving her alone in the dark.

China thought about what he said. If taking a name changed so much, why would Bliss fear their grandmother as much as she did? Bliss who, at the age of eleven, was stronger than most grown men and should fear nothing. If control ended when a name was taken, then why did he never raise his fists to defend himself? Why did he never fight back? If he, with a taken name and the gift of magic, could still be hurt then what hope has she? She, who was young and small and weak, who's magic had yet to manifest. What hope had she? 

Eventually, the wind quietened. The rain faded back to a gentle shower.

China's body grew numb, a dull warmth spread through her limbs. Sometime later, she realised that Bliss must have mixed some medicinal leaves in with the tea leaves and sweetened it with honey to disguise their bitter taste. Oh, what a risk that was. If Ishara caught him stealing from her alchemy cupboard, where she kept the ingredients for her tonics and potions and poisons... It would be worse than breaking the teacup. It would be worse than blaspheming against the gods.

Perhaps, Bliss wasn't as afraid as she believed. 

**⁂**

At dawn, her mother came. She walked slowly up the aisle. Unhurried footsteps echoing across the chamber. China knew it was her mother, from the sound of them, before she even came into view. 

"Stand up, _Bébinn,_ " she said. 

China stood up. Her legs protested at the movement. They wanted to buckle beneath her weight. It was a minor miracle that she stayed upright. She turned to face her mother. Tristitia's face was sour in the morning light but it softened slightly when China dipped her head and curtsied clumsily in greeting. 

"Go to your rooms," her mother said, with a sigh. It wasn't an order this time. At least, not in the way it was when her given name was used. That didn't mean she could disobey it, however. 

"Yes, Mother."

Tristitia sighed again. Then she added, in a more gentle voice: "I'll have the servants brings you something to break your fast."

China curtsied again before beginning her unsteady walk back to the house. Movement felt foreign to her and she stumbled more than once, but she made it.

Not long after she had crawled into bed, a maid came with a bowl of pottage and a handful of bandages. She set the food down on a table by China's bed without a word. This woman had been with the family China's entire life span so far. She knew their ways. She knew better than to ask questions. She helped China undress and then set to the task of washing and bandaging China's knees. Neither of them spoke. 

China flinched when the maid touched her bruises. The pain-numbing leaves Bliss had given her had worn off. Everything hurt. She wanted to cry but didn't. She would not allow herself to show weakness in front of a mortal. It was unbecoming, her mother said. Later, when the maid had left and China was alone again, she would cry. And then she would eat her breakfast in silence and sleep until evening prayer. 

**⁂**

Just before sunset, China stumbled back to the chapel. Hurrying across the grounds as fast her feet would allow her. Her family, bar her father, were already there. She was still breathless when she took her place next to her mother. The sermon began. China focused on calming her breath. And when her pulse had stopped roaring, she focused on listening. Of sitting in perfect stillness. Of reminding herself how much the gods loved her. 

When it was over. When the Gospel had closed with a thud. When Irshara had stepped down from her platform and Tristitia rose from her seat, China stood. 

"Stop, _Bébinn,_ " commanded her grandmother. 

China froze. 

"Your lateness makes me think you have not learnt your lesson," Ishara said. "On your knees, _Bébinn._ "

She fell to her knees. 

"Pray, _Bébinn._ "


End file.
